To commemorate five years in the genre fiction business, I’m writing a series of blog posts about my experiences in the hope they might help new or upcoming writers understand a bit more about the world of agents, indie publishers and the often harsh, often rewarding realities of fiction writing. This is me, Five Years In.
NOVEMBER 21, 2019
Part Two: “The Teeny Tiny Oak Gets Run Over by a Bulldozer”
My debut story / chapbook / thingamajig – “Mother” (formerly “Cocoon”) – was released by Dunhams Manor Press in October 2015.
Salut!
The next few months were an amazing and surreal time. Here was this little book, out in the wild, and people were actually buying it… people were actually reading it. People were leaving REVIEWS on Goodreads and Amazon. Dude, positive reviews (it would be a bit before I felt the cruel sting of the 1-star review, before I was insulted and had my writing called things like “masturbatory” or that a good title for one of my pieces would be “toilet” etc). Even more surreally (sp?), the cover of my little chapbook was graced with blurbs by amazing, established writers like Paul Tremblay, Laird Barron and Adam Nevill. WTF, right?
Just like that, I turned my back on screenplays and focused on writing fiction. This was the hill I would die on. This was what I wanted to do, what I would do No Matter The Cost:
I would put on the black cape. Slap a big Times New Roman “H” on my chest.
I would be a Horror Writer.
Immediately, I wanted to get started on another story. I needed something physical and dark. Something so frightening that seasoned horror readers wouldn’t know what hit ‘em (hey, a boy can dream).
My next story was something I called “Altar”, which ran full-speed with this premise of sweet nostalgia combined with a “hitting ‘em hard and leaving no prisoners” mentality (along with some other dicey themes that would force a publisher or two to turn me away). And so, it was back to Dunhams Manor I went, hat in hand, asking the eternal question all short story writers are cursed to ask, in perpetuity, until the end of time:
What do you think of this one?
*
Luckily, the editor (a stalwart friend of horror named Joe Zanetti) loved the piece, and DMP was willing to have another go-round with me. Sweet, right?
But here’s where it gets weird.
When “Altar” came out in early 2016, my readership blossomed. The chapbook got positive reviews (professional reviews!) and folks seemed to really dig the piece. Lovecraft eZine gave it some airtime on their podcast, Cemetery Dance gave it props, and this insane UK website that I’d been digging for a few months said that “Altar cements Fracassi into the annals of weird and horror fiction…”
Huh? Just like that? I mean, it’s two stories, right?
I figured that surely the other shoe was on its way down… this was going too well. It was too aggrandizing. Too good to be true.
Man, I was spot-frickin’-on.
*
The hate came next.
Out of the blue, a cadre of established writers – for whatever reason – began attacking my publisher on social media. Then they began attacking me. ME! What the hell had I done?
Things went downhill fast. I was fighting for my right to publish. Fighting for my right to carve a niche for my work. I had been so excited! I had been so… NAÏVE. Here I’d thought the community was supportive, grateful to see new ideas, new voices. But it was – in some corners – quite the opposite. I was bullied. I was “part of the problem” of new writers trying to find a shortcut to publishing. I was shocked. Upset. Confused.
It affected me to the point where I lashed out. Fought back, blindly, like man in the dark swiping at a flock of angry bats. My bubble had - quite officially and unceremoniously - been burst.
Wait, I thought on more than one restless night. What the hell just happened?
What had seemed awesome was suddenly not awesome. What had seemed like a cool, gracious, supportive online community had become contentious, battering, hateful.
I wanted to step away. I wanted to - just maybe - forget the whole thing. Go back to the relative safety of screenwriting. Better the sharks you know, I figured.
Instead, I wrote.
And wrote, and wrote, and wrote.
NEWBIE WRITER CONUNDRUM #1
WHERE TO PUBLISH (or, THE AVOIDANCE OF BEING MARKED)
After the vitriol I dealt with after publishing my story “Altar” with a small press, I was forced to deal with the conundrum that so many writers were spending so much time and energy screaming about on social media. Okay, I thought, taking a meditative position and trying to cull out the sanity from the arguments… so what is the right publishing outlet for me?
Let’s take a step back. There are basically three options for a new genre writer: One, self-publish. Two, publish with a small press. Three, publish with a big press. Seems simple, right?
Here’s the problem: If you self-publish, the Perception is you’re taking the “easy road” and not “putting in the time” to craft something that’s quality enough to be sold to a 3rd party. The Perception is your stuff isn’t very good, and it’s more a vanity project. The Perception is you’re not a Professional Writer. I think a writer named Matthew Bartlett went a long way toward throwing shade on those ideals. And folks like Andy Weir, who self-published THE MARTIAN before it was picked up by a major press, is one of many success stories.
The second option, publishing with a small press, has its own Perception issues. But the bigger issue here is a matter of money. For example, if a small press gives you $20 for a story, but will publish that story as part of an anthology or in a standalone chapbook format, then you as an author are making a decision: Do I publish this story with Small Press X, for essentially no money, in order to create / grow a readership (albeit limited) for my work? By doing so, am I saying my writing has no monetary value? Am I literally selling my creative output… oh god, don’t say it… for EXPOSURE? The short answer is yeah, you are. And that’s a minefield, baby. On one hand, photographers, painters, and musicians do it all the time. Play small venues. Create crappy demo tapes. Show their work on the walls of a shitty café. EXPOSURE. Such a filthy word in the fiction biz. A factoid I’ve learned the hard way. And here’s the other thing, cherry: You’ve just pissed off a bunch of midlist writers who are going to scream and rant and bully because, in their minds, you’re hurting the industry. You’re hurting the value of fiction. By putting out your little story with a micro press, you’ve essentially thrown in with the army of new writers trying to topple the professional independent fiction-writing marketplace.
Let’s move on while you think about that.
Lastly, you decide to be a good boy or girl. You write hundreds of stories and submit to thousands of presses, anthologies and magazines. One, five, ten, fifteen years later, you’ve honed your craft to the point where it’s so shiny and bright that these bigger presses have no choice but to accept your work, pay you a professional sum of money, and voila! You’re on your way, kid. This is the route veteran writers will tell you to take. Will insist you take. If you do it any other way, be prepared to have some haughty glances thrown your way at the next convention.
Okay Writer, so here’s the million-dollar-question:
What Do You Do?
The short answer is (drumroll)… I don’t know. Look, every situation is unique. Every writer has their own set of goals, their own set of beliefs or standards, their own vision for their writing career. For me to tell anyone what they should or should not do with their creative output would be, in my mind, beyond rude. It would be obnoxious, and possibly hateful.
All I can tell you is what I did, and how it turned out. So let’s return to that, shall we?
It was as if someone had sparked a wildfire in my braiN, AND THE ONLY WAY TO CONTROL IT WAS TO WORK.
Over the next year I wrote and sold a solid handful of short stories (including two novellas), outlined a novel, and banged out a few more screenplays. I couldn’t type fast enough. I couldn’t get the stories onto the digital paper quickly enough. So I shut out the noise and the drama and the What If’s and focused on the one thing I could control. The Work.
During this period of gaining traction, and by leveraging the moderate indie success of “Altar”, I was able to make a deal with a publisher called JournalStone to publish my first story collection and the two novellas.
In 2016, I published my first novella, “Fragile Dreams” (cue the crickets).
In 2017, my debut story collection, BEHOLD THE VOID, was released, followed a few months later by another novella, “Sacculina.”
These did a little better.
People were beginning to discover me. In small doses, yeah, but slowly I was developing that mythical readership I’d once only dreamed about.
This Is Horror did a three-part interview with me. Kind, wonderful bloggers asked me for interviews. Reviewers were reviewing my work – The New York Times (!) did a not-too-terrible write-up – and my presence on Amazon and Goodreads was slowly growing from a puddle to a pond, one drip of water at a time. Things were happening.
The fury on social media had died down, and I felt like I was “in control” once more. As a guy who’d been an SVP at one of the largest music companies in the world and owned his own business for nearly a decade, being In Control was something I was used to. I was not used to backing down, accepting an insult, or letting people tell me what I could or could not accomplish…
Idiot.
Naïve, stupid, ignorant, cocky, blind-as-a-drunk-bat dumbass.
Because boy-oh-boy, I was a lot of things. But In Control was not one of them.
Not by a long shot.
*
So yeah, on the surface at least, things were good. The collection came out and was well-received, and it felt like the upward trajectory was intact.
But there was a rub.
The contract I signed (sans representation), gave all the rights – essentially in perpetuity – of my work to the publisher for a fraction of revenue and (this is embarrassing) zero advance. Were this a major publishing deal, were they spending money on things like advertising, marketing, and distribution, that might seem like an okay deal. One that didn’t keep you up nights, at least. But when it’s essentially a vanity press doing nothing more than designing a cover and tossing it up on Amazon, it seems a little less… fair. Doesn’t it? But hey, what do I know? I just got here.
Regardless, like most newbie writers, I was just happy someone wanted to publish me. And like most newbie writers, desperation trumped common sense. But now, oddly, all those angry voices, all those bitter attacks, came back like pissed-off spirits to haunt me...
WAS I being stupid? WAS I settling for less than the work deserved? WAS I hurting The Cause?
Maybe.
Possibly.
*
Regardless of any nagging doubts (and there were many, like writhing snakes under a blanket), here I was. A Published Author. I’d worked hard, put myself out there. Done what I felt was right for me and my budding fiction career.
So why was I so lost? Why was I so confused?
But before doubt could take hold, like a miracle, the heavens opened, the clouds parted, and here – finally – was the proverbial light at the end of this dark tunnel. In a burst of magnificent, blinding brilliance, an Agent appeared, and said, “LO, DO NOT BE AFRAID, FOR I AM WITH YOU!”
Salvation!
At last… Right?
Hahaha… man… you won’t believe what happened next.
TO BE CONTINUED WITH Five Years In: Part Three “WRITERS PREFER TO EXPLODE FROM WITHIN”